


monday morning couldn't guarantee

by a_good_soldier



Series: HANDLING EXPRESSIONS OF WINCHESTER EMOTION: A FIELD GUIDE (or: supernatural s12 codas) [10]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s12e20 Twigs and Twine and Tasha Banes, Gen, Hell Trauma, Shock, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 03:23:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10845462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_good_soldier/pseuds/a_good_soldier
Summary: Max Banes is going to Hell.





	monday morning couldn't guarantee

**Author's Note:**

> 12x20- WOAH! I'm like, wow, shocker, they killed two women of color, but also I guess kind of turned it around with the Alicia resurrection? I also really liked the way Dean talked about Max deserving agency re: making terrible decisions for family, in kind of a weird "Ha! It's not just WInchesters who're allowed to have manpain!" way.
> 
> Title from the Mamas and the Papas' Monday Morning. Warnings for shock & mentions of hell trauma aftereffects.

Shock. That’s what the Winchesters call it, and if anyone’s the expert, it’s them.

Max’s hands are shaking. He needs— he needs someone here. He wishes Sam and Dean stayed, except for how he doesn’t. He wishes his only option wasn’t two hulking white men telling him he’ll hurt when this is over.

He hurts already.

Alicia knows Mom’s dead, now. Knows the mom they saw was a doll. Alicia doesn’t know what will be waiting for Max after death takes him. Hell, neither does Max.

Alicia doesn’t know she’s… doesn’t know what she is.

Max’s hands are shaking. He grips the steering wheel tighter, because if they stay in that godforsaken town for one second longer he’s gonna puke, and it won’t be pretty. Alicia’s sleeping in the back, which is interesting. That old crone had never bothered to care for her creatures or figure out what they needed. He hadn’t figured a tree would need to sleep.

The sun rises straight ahead. He doesn’t know where he’s headed — back to New York, maybe, except that the city feels both too mundane and too magic-saturated to be safe. Too lively. All he knows is that Wyoming belongs far in the rearview mirror, and there’s more land east than west of it.

Route 25 turns into Route 80 turns into Nebraska, turns into Ranch Land C-Store just off the 56A after North Platte. 9:17 AM. Alicia died less than 12 hours ago. Alicia’s new body is almost 7 hours old.

“I’m gonna go grab some chips and gatorade. Want anything?”

Max nods, and then shakes his head, and doesn’t let go of the steering wheel, and watches as she buys chips, gatorade, and the pack of twizzlers he didn’t ask for. It’s so bizarre to see her buying chips from a gas station convenience store, to hear her voice so close to how it sounded ten years ago on their first road trip for one of Mom’s easier cases.

Alicia’s chatting with the cashier. Always so beautiful, full of energy, likeable. Max is talking about her like she’s dead. He wants to pull her back into the safe cocoon of the car. He can’t stop her from snapping like a twig from out here.

When Max lets go of the steering wheel, welts are already forming at the tops of his palms, rubbed raw from the friction. He wipes the sweat off on his jeans. There’s still blood under his fingernails. For a span of four hours, Max’s entire family was dead. When Max dies, he’s going to hell.

So stupid. _This is so stupid_ , he thinks, and does it anyway.

“This is Dean.”

Max breathes. So stupid. So, so stupid.

“Hey, seriously, c’mon, I’m not into the heavy breathing thing. Who the hell are you?”

“Max.” His voice breaks on the one syllable. Jesus. “It’s— Max. Banes.”

Max can hear the breath whooshing out of Dean’s mouth. “Hey, Max,” he says, voice gentler. Almost soft, if you could call anything about a man like that soft. “What’s up?”

Just say it. If he reacts bad, just hang up. It’s easy to hide from the Winchesters if you’re the most powerful witch to walk the Earth. “What’s Hell like?”

“No,” Dean snaps. Max waits. Alicia comes back to drop her goods in the backseat. _Who’s that?_ she mouths. _Dean_ , Max responds, and Alicia winks. Through Max’s eyeroll, she mouths _Bathroom_ , pointing back to the store. “No, Max—”

“Well, okay. I’ll call someone else, then.” He doesn’t have anyone else on speed dial who’s been to Hell and lived to tell the tale, but he’s sure he can find one or two people.

“No, Max, don’t—” Max drums his fingers on the steering wheel. His frustration at Dean’s dramatic pauses is actually kind of helpful, in that it distracts him from the sheer, previously unimaginable terror of the situation he’s in. “Tell me you didn’t do what I think you did.”

“Like you wouldn’t do the same,” Max retorts, and Dean actually just mumbles _yeah_.

Max is so shocked, all he can ask is, “What?”

“Yeah, you’re right. I would’ve done the same thing. I don’t get to judge you for this.” Dean sighs again. “I just— God, I didn’t want this for you. You don’t deserve…”

“Okay, just— so I die, and I wake up in Hell, and that’s it. Forever.” Max blinks as the magnitude of this hits him. It’s worth it, of course it’s worth it, but he’s— he’s—

It’s worth it. That’s the important part.

“We’ll get you out of this,” Dean says. “Seriously, we will, it’s just— you gotta not die anytime soon, okay?”

“You’re gonna get me out of this? Dean, I made my deal. You don’t back out of deals with demons that easy.”

“You’re not going to Hell,” Dean yells. “You’re not, and I don’t— that’s not for you. That world, it isn’t—”

“You think I’m just some kid, right? You think—”

“No, it’s not that, it’s— Max, what you felt when you saw Alicia there… that’s what Hell is. Over and over. And it—” Max is— are those _tears_? Is Dean Winchester crying on the phone with Max Banes right now? “—it _hurts_. I— for the first few months after I, after I got out, I—”

“Hey,” Max says. He realizes — well, he already knew, most likely, but it’s been forgotten in the chaos — that this a traumatic experience for Dean. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to think about it.”

“I couldn’t sleep, and not just because of the nightmares. I’d be— it would be muscle cramps and my toes feeling like they were burning and my eyeballs being ripped out of their sockets, even when nothing was happening to me. That’s what you’re getting into, if you ever make it out. If you go to Hell, you’re going to a place that’s— that’s the worst— there’s nothing like it. There’s nothing.”

Alicia slides into the backseat, and it’s like all of the stress melts away. She’s here.

“I gotta go, Dean. Thank you.”

“No, wait, Max—”

“Thank you for telling me what I’m getting into.” Max swallows. Alicia smiles in the rearview mirror, and Max puts his hands back on the steering wheel. “I still think it’s worth it.”

And Dean doesn’t say anything to that at all.


End file.
